Tuesday, January 27, 2015

before and after

Cute bulldog before:



After copy and pasting and changing the text that makes up this picture of this bow tied cutie.

Nothing better than a family pic of Kanye, Kim and North West.





MY FIRST GIF

Mandy the merry mermaid attempts to escape from the evil Pirate's hook.

24 hour technology overload


8:30 - woken up by roommate. check phone for emails and texts. go back to bed.
8:50 - wake up and check weather. get ready and go to class.
9:10 - phone call on the way to class
11:50 - 4 texts and a phone call
12:00-12:30 - get lunch. group messaging.
1-3 - watched netflix in bed.
3:30 - instagram, snapchat
6-7 - snapchat, instagram, twitter
9:30 - shower. play pandora on phone onto bluetooth speaker.
8-11:30 - texting, phone calls
12:00 - watched a movie with my suite.

What I noticed about my use of technology is that I constantly feel the need to just click my home button and see if I have any messages on my phone. I am the kind of person who hates unread or unopened emails and I am constantly checking to see if there are any updates or unopened messages. I am also always checking for updates on social media. I always have snapchat, instagram, and Facebook up on my phone to see if anything good is online. Unfortunately this doesn't go so well with my family data plan and out of the 10 GBs my family has a month I use up about 8. I am now on restriction and have formed the habit of opening up my phone just to make sure all of my apps are closed. I also watch a lot of netflix and am constantly laying in bed binging on some new tv show.
I can't take a shower or get ready for the day without music so I always have my phone on pandora and play music on my bluetooth speaker in the bathroom.

I found that my obsession with technology is that I constantly need my mind to be focused on something otherwise I feel "bored". This feeling of doing nothing or being anxious because I can't find my phone or I don't have wifi so I can't check instagram is insane. This constant need is filling my life with bright white screens that are feeding my short attention span at all times. It seems obsessive and compulsive and crazy. But it's how the majority of the population works now-a-days. I babysit six year olds who had the Iphone 6 before I did. My one year old niece knows how to swipe up on a ipad screen to get rid of a notification when she is watching her favorite show. Technology has taken over society to the point that most of us could not function throughout the day without using a computer or cell phone.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Artist Post 1: Nam June Paik



Today I will be discussing the artwork of Nam June Paik. Nam was a Korean American 
Artist in the 60's and 70's. His work was inspired by the composer John Cage. Paik found his 
inspiration through Dadaism (an early 20th century art movement) as well as Fluxus (a group of artists who merged different artistic media).

To give a little background information. Nam was born in 1932 in Seoul and was the youngest of five.   Paik grew up learning the piano and was classically trained. His family eventually fled Korea, because of the war, and Paik made his way to Germany after graduating from the University of Tokyo. In Germany, while working with the composerThrasybulos Georgiades at Munich University, Nam met the four men who would give him the inspiration to create his electronic art. These four men were; Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Joseph Beuys and wolf Vostell.

Below is an image of John Cage. One of Paik's biggest motivators.


One piece that portrays Paik's use of music and art is his 1963 piece called Random Access:



In this image you can see the 50+ strips of audio tape Paik had stuck to the wall. He then asked observers to take down pieces and place them on the reel that he had rigged to a set of speakers. The speakers then played the audio strips placed on the tape deck. Giving the observer the control of the outcome. Thus the use of "Controlled Randomness". This is a commonly used principle in the digital medium due to the concept of "Random accesses a basis for processing and assembling information". 


bib:
http://www.paikstudios.com/images/8.jpg
http://www.nydigitalsalon.org/10/artwork/thumbs/Random-Access-1.jpg
http://issueprojectroom.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/events/john-cage-paris-1981.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_June_Paik
https://blackboard.smcm.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-181223-dt-content-rid-735463_1/courses/15SP-ART214.01/13FA-ART214.01_ImportedContent_20130826114536/ChristianePaul.pdf